Nigeria seems to be the country taking pole position for Most Egregious Offenses in the Name of Religion these days.
Exhibit A: "Reverend King," self-styled leader of the Christian Praying Asembly, is one of these scumbags who founds a cult just so he can get loads of trim. King, real name Emeka Ezeugo, subjected female members of his "congregation" to wild orgies, and even had some of them doing the personal maid thing in the nude. Then, in a true irony-meter-exploding moment, he rounded up a bunch of them, denounced them for fornication, and set them on fire, killing one. He has now been sentenced to hang, for which I risk losing my membership in the Cool Liberals Club by saying "good riddance." Hammurabi was a man who knew how to take care of business.
Exhibit B: The Nigerian government is all set to give the definition of homophobia a quantum leap. They are considering legislation that would make it a crime for gay people, essentially, to even exist (as if it weren't enough that they already stone them to death there). Any public meeting in which one or more attendee is gay would be illegal; so that would include having lunch, as well as, oh, a gay person buying groceries, if the checker at the supermarket is straight. This is fear taken to lunacy. It's the kind of thing only Fred Phelps could love. I suppose it should come as no surprise that the Christian Right in the US looks upon Nigeria as some sort of role model to follow.
This is what you get in fanatically religious societies. Fear, hate, hypocrisy, and bizarre attitudes towards human sexuality that lead to violence. Say so, though, and you're a "militant atheist" who just doesn't recognize the "good things" religion does for people. Whatever.
At least, people seem to be slowly waking up from the long nightmare, now. We can only hope that they don't fall back asleep, again.
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